Zone of Alienation
by MynaPyrrhuloxia
Summary: Chernoybl as seen through the eyes of Norway. A story on how nature can make every tragedy beautiful. Inspired by Alan Weisman's book The World Without Us.
1. Conference

He didn't admit that he willingly joined the committee just so he could see it.

(He never jumps excitedly to claim something as his. He pretends he doesn't want it, but like a snake or a cat, he weaves through the tall wheat and suddenly strikes, pinning down what he wants in a moment.)

It was much easier this time, as nobody wanted the job but him. It was gladly given to him.

His dress shoes clicked on the ceramic tiles. He entered a room with chattering people, all trying to find their seats. Nobody noticed him as he slid into his place and sat quietly, waiting for the CRDP meeting to begin.

He wasn't interested in the proceedings of the figures as the Chair listed them off in Russian. He wasn't the best at Russian. He wasn't there to understand or remember facts of data.

He was there to see.


	2. Red

"We've been having problems with stalkers in the last few years. They don't realize how dangerous it is," his guide told him as they suited up in protective armor. "Or maybe they just don't realize how horrible this place is."

"You heard what happened to the forest. It turned red. That's abnormal," another added.

Norway didn't respond as he fastened his helmet.

He found beauty in the horrid.


	3. A Roadside Picnic

He had fallen in love with the idea before anyone had ever written about it. As much as industrialization and advancements made life easier, they also made the world uglier. People spent less and less time interacting with others, less time with nature, the earth, and the mother of all things. And he thought that was wrong.

He had gotten a stomachache in 1986.

He wanted to see this place. A place where nobody lived.

He had read Roadside Picnic. He was excited when fiction could possibly become reality.

It was something he longed to try, but ethics prevented such a thought-experiment from happening.

So when it did happen, despite the slight nausea associated with it, he did something he rarely ever did.

He ran deep into the woods behind his home and sang his heart out.


	4. Cicada

(There were seven of them. Not including him. With their Geiger counters and instruments, the seven of them scour the land for radioactivity, checking for safety and jotting down notes. Recording new data. Norway doesn't move. He is captivated by the trees, and only scurries along after them when they call out to him.)

"We can't go any farther," he is told, "The radioactivity is too high."

Norway refuses to speak a word as he quickly removes the white shroud around his body, letting what was meant to protect him fall against the ground. He shakes his head to free his hair once the helmet comes off. He's wearing hiking shoes, jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. He hands the scientists and researchers the remains of his outermost shell, is handed a hunting knife, and nods farewell.

With each passing step, he continues to shed layers of himself until he is completely unarmored by his cold eyes, bitter expression, and a mind that thinks of only sad things.

He has one week.


	5. Rebirth

(Because of the physiology of the countries, the radioactive particles will not cause any long-term problems in their life. Their current bodies will become laden with dangerous metals. They will eventually become sick with radiation poisoning. They aren't immune to it by nature.

The difference is that they have more than a single life, and when they die, their flesh is virgin. This is why scars often don't stay, unless they are as physically and psychologically damaging enough become an eternal reminder of a mistake. Tattoos, piercings—these too are wiped clean.

Before he comes back to society, he will have to be born again.

In essence, this is a suicide mission.)


	6. City

It's quiet, but then he realizes it only sounds quiet since he's been living in the city too long.


	7. Birds

The hum of summer and the heat do not bother him.

"The world isn't empty," he writes into his journal. It isn't exactly his, though. He has to record what he sees. So the people on the outside can know. He ventures deeper, and he, in black ink and with quick hand, lists the scientific names for the plants he sees.

He stops dead in his tracks when he sees barn swallows flitting around the broken concrete structures, through shattered windows and empty storefronts.

He smiles, because the world isn't dead after all.


	8. History

There is something that sends shivers up his spine when he finds the abandoned room of a young girl, her dolls collecting dust on the shelf. He's tempted to take the photograph of her—a smiling brunette with shoulder-length hair in a brass-colored frame—but he is reminded that he can only take what he sees back with him. A shame, as such a pretty picture would suit his desk nicely.

Something deep within his bones aches, and he remembers why these buildings scare him.

When his village was pillaged while he was away, he found it just as empty as this. As if it had become a world without people.

(If you subtracted the bloodstains and put technology on fast-forward, it would have looked the same.)


	9. Raindrop

It feels good to relax, to let go of all the weight of the world he let rest on his shoulders. It was his third day, as he settled down to sleep in the skeletal remains of an apartment complex. The fourth would be coming soon, as he felt his eyes droop, stomach satiated by a rabbit he trapped. Out the window, he watched a star fall to earth, and then he remembered that his simple existence was only a moment in time.

As old as he was, he was only one raindrop in the vastness of the ocean.

It should've scared him, but he only found himself laughing like a child.

He was three days into exploring humanity's tragedy that nature had begun to reclaim.

It only took those three days and that emptiness to make Norway fall in love with the world again.


	10. Living

This didn't feel like work to him. It felt like living.

He felt alive.


	11. Radioactivity

The sarcophagus was the most unsightly thing he had ever seen.

He recorded every single crack and fissure in it. Nature and that substance-that-was-not-quite-exactly-nature were breaking it apart.

Even as the bird nested in the enclaves, even as they whirred around him like laundry in a washing machine, he frowned, for he new that _people_ would want another layer of solid grey concrete around the poison they had unleashed.

(It was the fifth day.)


	12. Cycles

(But maybe it wasn't so bad, he thought, as he watched a mother cat nurse her kittens in the cupboard of a farmhouse.

Life still went on.

Life continues to go on.

Even if the world becomes ugly.)


	13. Forgiveness

He slit his own throat and bled to death, eyes gazing at the pristine blue of the cloudless sky.

(He forgave humanity's mistakes on the seventh day.)

His final prayer to the gods, as he let his blood seep into the earth's crust, was the hope that the feelings of this place stay with him. He learned more from this forsaken land then he had in a century of living. Metaphorically speaking.

When the world birthed him again, he wasn't in Ukraine anymore.


	14. Beauty

"You're going to see them tomorrow—the scientists," Belarus says, sitting down across from him. "Aren't you?"

He nods, in mid-chew, staring down at his plate.

"I hate that place," she snaps, "It's caused me so much pain. But you tell me that you think it's the most beautiful thing you've seen in your entire life?"

"It is. Mother creates the most beautiful works of art. She always has."

She scoffs, folds up her napkin, and leaves.


	15. Empty

(She rants to Norway, sitting on the couch next to him, about how the world is fill of empty rhetoric and broken people. She wants to push the restart button. She wants the world to move backwards in time to a world where life hadn't evolved the technology to ruin the earth for everyone. To her, the earth would become a barren landscape, devoid of all things, and it was too late to stop it.)

"The world isn't empty," he retorts, and Belarus swears that she sees him smile before he embraces her. She can smell the sweet scent of July in his hair.

"It's not as empty as you think it is."


	16. Change

He comes home to find Iceland in his kitchen, munching on fish.

"You look different," his brother tells him.

Norway shrugs

But he knows what he means.


	17. Poem

("I have learned

That the secret to happiness

Is as simple

As realizing that the world is beautiful

And although flawed

Is awe-inspiring all the same.

Fall in love with the world

And your heart will never be the same.

Instead of bursting out with sadness

Joy hydrates your body and soul

Until you cannot differentiate your body

From the celestial one that is beneath your feet.")

He writes this in his journal, goes to sleep, and dreams.


End file.
